


MAG ███: Abandonware

by poppywine



Category: Lemon Demon (Musician), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Breaking and Entering, Missions Gone Wrong, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Other, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24208369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppywine/pseuds/poppywine
Summary: "Walking into that cramped, musty place had the feeling of wandering into a tomb: spiderweb hung thick in the air, some webs larger than my hand. But somehow even those felt abandoned, with dust coating each strand so totally it looked like a fine-spun wool."
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	MAG ███: Abandonware

**Author's Note:**

> The main character isn't **actually** Niel Cicierega, but he has same name because I'm nothing if not uncreative.

_Statement of one N███ █████████, regarding an unusual encounter with an arcade cabinet in December of 1990, somewhere in the American Midwest. Original statement given February 29th 2016. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London._

_Statement begins._

* * *

**N███**

I never thought I would be a criminal, you know? I mean... not many people plan it, but I really assumed to avoid that type of stuff for most of my life. I guess that explains the sort of dread that would hit me every time I went out to steal. 

I-I know it sounds ridiculous, I know what you’re thinking: _yeah right, there’s no way this guy is really trying to convince me that he used to steal for a living but somehow isn’t a thief- what a joke, right?_

But, seriously- hear me out, okay?

Like I said, I never meant to be a thief- it just seemed like the only option at the time. A year or so after college, I’d lost my job and when I moved back in with my parents’ I stupidly decided to come out. I had just read the bi manifesto that came out the same year and felt... empowered, I guess? So I decided to go through with it.

Needless to say, it didn’t go well. My parents didn’t disown me or anything, so I guess I’m lucky- but still, neither were too thrilled at the idea. I won’t get into the details here or anything but they seemed... disappointed in me. During all this I was still job hunting, but there weren’t many options. Between that and the insufferable attitude of my parents, I ended up befriending some local characters. There were three of them: Rae, the youngest of the bunch, and brothers Erik and Trey. Rae was like me, having moved back home after losing her tech job, while Erik and Trey had never left, with Trey working part time at the local library while Erik was a bit of a shut in who apparently supported himself through the occasional odd job. 

Anyway, our group wasn’t large, but once we started hanging out we were pretty much always together. It wasn’t long however, before I noticed that they always seemed to have money to blow- at first I was worried, thinking they were dealers or something like that, but they eventually came clean. They stole, particularly from summer homes- empty houses with no one using them. Specifically they targeted the summer villas in the neighborhood over, empty now that the weather was cooling. They’d scope a place until they knew for sure the occupants were gone for the season before swooping in and picking the place dry. Rae handled the security systems, though there weren’t as many back then, and Erik and I did the heavy lifting while Trey manned the getaway van. I don’t know why Trey wasn’t one of the runners with me. He was the more confident of the two, more stable and level-headed. Though, thinking of it, I’d rather have someone sure of themselves driving instead of someone like Erik- he was always a bit, y’know, squirrely.

I sort of fell into it- at first I wasn’t sure, but then Rae asked if I could hold on to a few items they hadn’t sold yet and I said why not. When they came to pick up the stuff Trey casually mentioned how much they’d made on the last haul and it was like something came over me- in my defense, to my unemployed mind any amount was an improvement. I tried to play it cool, asked if they had room for one more member in their little gang, but the way Erik giggled it was obvious how desperate I must have sounded. He said yeah, they could always use more hands to carry the haul to the truck, and that was it. I negotiated my cut of the takings and we all settled on the next time and place to hit.

The next few jobs went well, smooth enough that I don’t remember much about them other then the money- one was a little bungalow of a corporate accountant, the other a cottage belonging to an aspiring writer and lastly an honest-to-God yurt belonging to a trust fund baby and his wife.

That last one was the riskiest one by far. The guy who owned the place had sent a caretaker at the last minute to check that the gas had been turned off and we nearly ran right into him, completely rattling me but only mildly irritating the others. I thought I played off my fear well enough, but they must have seen through me and decided the next place would be lower-risk to restore my confidence. 

I remember thinking that was kind of them, that I wouldn’t disappoint them again. This was on December 21st. We decided striking right before Christmas would be best- less people out, with the guards and cops busy with the stores and shoppers. 

The target was an old abandoned arcade storefront at the edge of town, behind the new mall that had sprung up a few years ago. It was perfect, Rae had told us, because of its relative isolation and state of legal limbo. No one had been here since the place had closed last year. There had been weird rumors of kids spending all their money there only to refuse to leave, sometimes even hiding in the bathrooms and behind cabinets in an attempt to stay overnight with the machines. The staff were only slightly better- employees came and went like a revolving door, and the maintenance workers had to fight to keep the floor and machines clean from the weird dark stains that seemed to pop up everywhere. I hadn’t gone there much while it was still open but I still remembered watching a cleaning lady quit on the spot, shouting she couldn’t take the place anymore before storming out. Others simply stopped coming in and left town. 

It sounded like a hellhole, and I told them so- but the group assured me there was plenty of cash -mostly coins, but still- and sellable scrap inside, more then enough to make bank. So, when the day came, we went for it. 

I was unsurprisingly nervous once everything started- the night was colder than we’d thought it would be, so we were all shivering as we loitered around the back entrance to the place, waiting for Rae to pick the lock and let us in. She’d gone in through a window, which normally would have been enough of an entry for all of us, but because we were worried about the weight of all those quarters we’d opted for the door. There also was a small and dirty shed in the parking lot adjacent the exit, but we decided to ignore the tiny workshop in favor of the larger building. 

The shatter of the glass was the loudest thing in the world. I didn’t react when it happened, buried as it was under traffic and wind, but later that sound would stand out to me as the turning point in the night. It was like that window had held the negative pressure within the building and all at once we were drawn into that darkness, between the rows of dusty and decayed game cabinets. Walking into that cramped, musty place had the feeling of wandering into a tomb: spiderweb hung thick in the air, some webs larger than my hand. But somehow even those felt abandoned, with dust coating each strand so totally it looked like a fine-spun wool.

We were cracking open the first cabinet when we heard it; the hollow rattling of spray paint being shaken. It was Erik, shaking a red can and grinning like he’d won the lottery. He liked to pretend he was an artist and now he was acting the part, painting swirls and scribbles over the thick dust. Again, he was always the more impulsive one of the group, which was why we usually made him the car-sitter. Normally we’d tell him to quit it, get out or pay more attention to the goods but this was so much easier then the summer homes that we let him do what he liked, just calling him over when we needed to. It was on the second row of prying apart machines and shoveling quarters into our bags that we heard it- Erik’s voice, calling for us between the filthy rows. 

He was standing there with an odd look in his eye, right in front of one of the cabinets. The thing looked like it had been jammed in at the last minute, practically shoved in the corner farthest from the door. It was clearly one of the older models- the color seemed dimmed, almost unfinished, and the control panel had been rubbed smooth from the friction of countless sweaty hands. The wood around the buttons was bare and seemed slightly warped, and I found myself thinking that from a distance the pale surface resembled nothing more than skin, stretched tight between buttons and a joystick. When I leaned closer to inspect it, I felt the intense, feverish heat emanating from the thing, like it was... sick, or something. Burning up from the inside. The weird warmth made me nervous enough that I took a few steps back, hoping no one saw and thought I was freaking out again. 

All of sudden, Erik starts speaking. He’s going off on this, this _rant_ about how much he’d hated this game, this one cabinet in particular. How hard it was, how much money and time he’d wasted on it, how he could never find any mention of it in any of the tech magazines no matter how hard he searched, even before the dreams started. Even so, he told us, he came back day after day even as the beeping of the game felt like a knife behind his eyes. Those were the exact words he used, “like a knife behind his eyes.” It was weird, sure, but we all thought that he was just rambling, bored with the gig.

At least we did, until he started attacking the thing.

I had turned to Trey to ask him what Erik was talking about, if he had ever even heard his brother mention the game before when I felt a rush of air across my face and heard Rae scream. I turned just in time to see Erik bring down the crowbar onto the cabinet with a rage that... that stunned me, the metal bar making a solid _thud_ against the console. The air I’d felt had been the current of his backswing barely missing my temple. I jumped backward, about to ask what the hell his problem was- but the others beat me to it, shouting at him what he was thinking and ripping the bar from his hands. He got quiet at that, looked at us like we were the crazy ones. 

“’S Christmas,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s my gift.”

That was all he said: It was his gift, the words formed with such fervent emotion that in that moment real fear found its way into all of us. We needed the crowbar though, so we took it back and he retreated, surrounding himself with the bitter stink of spray paint. We kept going, kept working our way down the aisles. It wasn’t until we heard the first crack, followed by a resounding thud that we even remembered he was there scrambled to see what the problem was.

When we found him, he was still there hunching over that same cabinet. He’d ripped it away from the wall and thrown himself at the damn thing until it tipped and was still hitting it even on the floor. It wasn’t until Trey grabbed his shoulder and spun him around that we saw it.

Fresh blood was smeared across the darkened screen and aged paneling, the source the slow drip from Erik’s knuckles. He was beating the machine like his life depended on it, ceaseless even as each hit tore more and more skin from his hands. He shook his brother off and swung again, blind to the red running from his wrists to his elbow. It wasn’t until Trey took a deep breath, moved a few steps back and absolutely tackled him that he stopped, a growl of frustration leaving him as he struggled to free himself. Rae and I were just frozen in shock, watching the two of them attack each other. It was stupid of me to stand there for so long I know but it all seemed so sudden, so explosive, that logic failed me. It wasn’t until Erik got an elbow into his Trey’s ribs and he dropped that the spell broke; Rae grabbed my arm, handed me everyones’ bags, and shoved me towards the van telling me to dump the change before coming back to help her split the brothers up. I practically flew to the van, tossed the stuff in and bolted back only to find both guys finally separated, apparently lost in catching their breath. Rae was standing between them, sweaty and pissed off. Erik’s nose was bleeding now, thick streams of blood spilling onto his shirt, but he was still trying to speak; His voice was dull and strangled through the broken bone. After a moment, I realized why he sounded so odd, broken nose aside- he was crying. Even as he wept, his mouth was working to form words. “I have to do this. I’m sorry.”

With that he darted for the crowbar again, picked it up and swung blindly at the cabinet.  
  
Everything seemed to slow then, right before that first hit. The screen made a strange sound on impact, somewhere between a wet pop and soft crunch. Erik didn’t even seem to notice how wrong the noise was; Instead, his face was twisted into an expression of insane delight as he brought the crowbar down again and again, hitting the cabinet everywhere and anywhere he could reach. Trey had backed away and was standing there with us, simply... watching his brother attempt to eviscerate a game cabinet. 

I don’t know how we didn’t notice sooner. It wasn’t until Erik pulled back for another swing and I felt something warm and distinctly wet sprinkling me that I realized something was actively leaking from the ruined machine. There must have been something different in my voice when I spoke, telling Erik to just _stop for a second_ because this time he did, something like fear in his eyes when he turned to me. Trey reached out to him and took his brothers’ hand, pulling him back to our tight cluster at the end of the aisle. 

“What’s going on,” he said, in a voice softer than I had expected for a guy as collected as him. Erik just sort of broke at that- voice cracking, he explained how out of control the game had made him feel, like a junkie reaching for the needle, and once he saw the dusty shell at the back of the arcade he thought he could take control of it. He wanted to destroy that itch that had beat at the back of his skull for years, and this was the best way he could think to do it. At this Rae reached out and took his other hand, smoothing her thumb over his still-raw hands and the air seemed to calm around us. It wasn’t until I took a step closer and heard the repulsive squelch of wet carpet that the spell broke, startling everyone. The liquid had so thoroughly drenched the ground it had turned the surrounding area into a swamp. As one unit, we all looked at the floor, clasped hands sliding free at the reality of the fluid as its smell rose thick and copper around us. Trey swore under his breath and produced a spare flashlight from his pocket, a bright column of light angling toward the mysterious wet spot beneath us. 

No one said anything, but as we all took in the sight of the damp soaking the fibers, traced the red wet smear all the way back to that sickly-hot arcade cabinet we felt the sudden brutal horror of understanding. The gush of blood slowed to irregular spurts as we all hovered there, unwilling to move and risk reawakening the dead air of the arcade. There was a soft shuffling from inside the warped and splintering wood, like rodents in the walls, and in unison we all leaned toward it, wanting nothing more then to turn and run but frozen in place. The sound reached a crescendo before ceasing entirely, cutting off as if silenced. In a moment of naive hope we relaxed, assuming whatever was happening was over, when from behind that black mirror a grey eye flickered open, bloodshot yet piercing and intelligent and far, _far_ too human. 

I don’t remember what happened after that. Someone screamed, another person retched, and when I came too I was sitting in the van, head between my knees and heart in my throat as Trey tore through traffic. Rae was ashen-faced in the front seat, and Erik was hunched in the loading space beside me, deep sobs rattling his chest. 

We didn’t go looting after that. After that night, the group sort of just... dissolved, found excuses to cancel on future plans and eventually most of us moved out of state and never bothered to look back. I can’t hold it against them.

A few years ago, though, I bothered to do research into the place. The original owner was some kind of tech genius who had disappeared in the 70’s, had just... gone up in smoke. I found some pictures of him, though. A few of the older ones were blurry, but there were headshots of him on the internet, leftovers from a missing persons project even though he’d been declared legally dead years ago. He was a skinny guy, reddish brown hair with thick coke-bottle glasses that framed intense, cerebral eyes. I recognized those eyes, knew their hard gunmetal grey.

I try not to think about that.


End file.
